ew for a diluted acquaintance with five
hundred people. But you mustn't think that your own group is the only
one--that is the bad exclusiveness--you ought to think that there are
thousands of intimate groups all over the world, which you could love just
as enthusiastically as you love your own, if you were inside them: and
then, apart from your own group, you ought to be prepared to find
reasonable and amiable and companionable people everywhere, and to be able
to put yourself in line with them. Why, good heavens, there are millions of
possible friends in the world! and one of my deepest and firmest hopes
about the next world, so to speak, is that there will be some chance of
communicating with them all at once, instead of shutting ourselves up in a
frowsy room like this, smelling of meat and wine. I don't deny you are very
good fellows, but if you think that you are the only fit and desirable
company in the world for me or for each other, I tell you plainly that you
are utterly mistaken. That's why I insist on your travelling about, to
avoid our becoming a coterie."

"Then it comes to this," said Vincent drily, "that you can't be inclusive,
and that you ought not to be exclusive?"

"Yes, that's exactly it!" said Father Payne. "You meant to shut me up with
one of our patent Oxford epigrams, I know--and, of course, it is deuced
smart! But put it the other way round, and it's all right. You can't help
being exclusive, and you must try to be inclusive--that's the truth, with
the Oxford tang taken out!"

We laughed at this, and Vincent reddened.

"Don't mind me, old man!" said Father Payne, "but try to make your epigrams
genial instead of contemptuous--inclusive rather than exclusive. They are
just as true, and the bitter flavour is only fit for the vitiated taste of
Dons." And Father Payne stretched out a large hand down the table, and
enclosed Vincent's in his own.

"Yes, it was a nasty turn," said Vincent, smiling, "I see what you mean."

"The world is a friendlier place than people know," said Father Payne. "We
have inherited a suspicion of the unknown and the unfamiliar. Don't you
remember how the ladies in _The Mill on the Floss_ mistrusted each
other's recipes, and ate dry bread in other houses rather than touch jam or
butter made on different methods. That is the old bad taint. But I think we
are moving in the right direction. I fancy that the awakening may be very
near, when we shall suddenly realise that we